Get Your Sheep Together
Scripture John 21: 15-17
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ 16A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ 17He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’
Accountability is Hard so Meet on the Beach
This interaction, I think, is where we must get the idea of a Come To Jesus Meeting because Jesus invited Peter to the first one. This is a passage that connects us, if we let it, to the notion of accountability. Jesus, of course, the master of this kind of hard meeting, hosts Peter, his long time disciple on the beach (so, note to self: take your hard meetings to a great setting). Jesus is on the beach calling the disciples ashore, making breakfast and a bonfire and, just when everything seems like nothing happened at all - no betrayal and no denial, no crucifixion and no resurrection - Jesus leans in and asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter, of course, says, “you know that I do,” but Jesus (if you read between the lines) gives him a look that sounds like… “doooo I?” and then asks again, “Simon, Son of John, do you love me?”
It would have been possible for Jesus to let it go. I would have said, “well Peter, it was a rough time (the crucifixion). I’m a little concerned about the whole denial thing, but let’s just move forward.” Maybe the Mediterranean is less conflict avoidant or maybe Jesus is always flexing his nerves of steel and reminding us how little he worries about what people think of him when he is doing God’s work. Regardless of the reason, Jesus dives right in. He does not shy away from the hard conversation that must be had nor does he write Peter off and say, "you have tried really hard, but you keep making mistakes. Look at all these memos in your file, this just isn’t a good fit, keep fishing.” Jesus requires accountability and Peter responds in the way that most of us would, he feels hurt.
Peter feels hurt first and foremost, probably because Jesus is calling him “Simon, Son of John.” I don’t know if this is the equivalence of your mom using your middle name, but I do know it is formal. The only other time in the Gospel of John that Jesus says “Simon, Son of John” is in the very first Chapter of John. It is at this point where Jesus meets Simon and give him his more famous nickname of “Peter.” It is a name linked to rock and sometimes it’s rock like dense when it comes to Peter’s learning curve with Jesus. He tries so hard and is strikingly earnest; bold in both his mistakes and his successes as a disciple. He left his fishing boat and traveled, witnessed healing and feasting and challenged the status quo. He even tried this work himself, made mistakes, and received grace. But the story is growing to its climax and Jesus begins to prepare the disciples for the danger they face with each step toward Jerusalem. They will betray and deny him, they will be scared and scattered. Peter, with all the earnest enthusiasm of Will Ferrell’s Elf responds, “Oh no Jesus I will not betray you. I will not deny you. I will be right there for it all.” Except unlike Elf, and just like most of us, Peter is nowhere to be found when the fecal matter hits the rotary oscillator.
In fact, Peter betrays Jesus three times during the ordeal leading to his crucifixion and death. And in the morning when Mary discovers the tomb is empty, Peter and the beloved disciple join her by racing to the tomb and seem to say, “Yep, you’re right Mary, he is gone.” They seem to shrug and leave Mary to tend to the search for answers and head off like they had something more important to do or I don’t know…brunch reservations. Then Mary preaches the first Easter sermon of resurrection and Jesus shows up to the disciples. They were gathered in a locked room, the fear palpable, and Jesus showed up. Except Thomas wasn’t there (he missed the meeting) and Jesus comes back a second time in these hazy resurrection encounters and, if nothing else, seals the “Doubting Thomas” nickname in history. Peter has heard from Mary and experienced Jesus’ presence not once, but twice, and in the final verses of John, he still says, “I’m going fishing.”
I’m Going Fishing
“I’m going fishing.” Sounds harmless…to us. To us, going fishing is about relaxing or self-care after a rough week (which trial, betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection definitely count as rough). For Peter, this is not a hobby or sport or meditation; it's a vocation. Peter says, “I’m going fishing” and he means “I am done and I am going back to everything I knew before Jesus.” Peter met Jesus and stopped fishing. He left his nets and journeyed with this wandering Rabbi, learning and feeding and healing and teaching. Peter is going back to before anything changed and, not only that, he is bringing others with him. This is where they meet Jesus again. The small fishing crew of disciples are having no luck. Jesus calls to them, gives them instructions to lower the nets on the other side of the boat and suddenly they have so many fish they can’t raise the net and pull in their catch. Peter calls out knowing it’s Jesus, puts on his clothes (which is a whole other sermon) and then, in true Peter fashion, jumps in the water to swim to Jesus. He can’t wait for his friends, he can’t wait to pull the boat to the shore, he senses Jesus and just jumps in. This resurrection encounter does something for Peter the others must not have. Jesus, taking charge of the happenings, tells the disciples to bring the fish ashore and they have a beach breakfast around the campfire.
This is where the cameras zoom in and the intensity rises. Jesus looks at Peter. The smell of breakfast and the sounds of the shore surround them and Jesus says, “Simon, Son of John, do you love me?” Jesus asks three times and he uses his formal name, but it must have startled Peter, reminding him that the relationship is starting over. Do you love me? Feed my lambs. Do you love me? Tend my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my sheep. Peter feels hurt and responds, “you know that I do.” But Jesus keeps asking Peter because love is more than words. Love doesn’t look like denying me in my trauma of crucifixion. Love does not look like shrugging and leaving Mary at the tomb and love doesn’t look like “I’m going fishing.”
The Come To Jesus Meeting
Oh, acceptability is hard. Jesus puts it right there and reminds Peter that love is expressed in action. Jesus could have let it go and enjoyed reconnecting on the beach or he could have just let Peter go after all the struggles to learn. But Jesus invents the Come To Jesus Meeting during a beach breakfast by reminding Peter that love looks like action; love looks like tending, feeding and nurturing the flock. Jesus has embodied this principle image from the Hebrew Bible and following him means doing the same.
The Good Shepherd tends the flock. They lead with the sing-song call of their voice rather than force, they guide rather than prod, they bind the wounds and they find the lost, they can even make a sheep lay down in a green pasture. Sheep must have food, water and feel safe to rest. The shepherd does all of this and when it is time to sleep, they bring the flock into a pen and lay their very body at the gate. With their very being, the shepherds say to the predators who want to steal, kill and destroy, “you must come through me.” Jesus reminds Peter of everything they know from their faith. Good leaders are good shepherds.
There is a beautiful Midrash where the Rabbis tell the story of David letting the smallest sheep graze first, then the larger sheep, and finally, the largest of the flock out last to graze so that the most vulnerable could be filled first. In this moment, God sees David as the one who is right to be king. Being a Good Shepherd means caring for the vulnerable and showing up when it is hard, being a Good Shepherd means tending, feeding and nurturing. And Jesus knows it is too important to brush under the rug. Jesus holds Peter accountable and reminds him that love means answering yes with your life.
Do you Love Me?
This week I visited with our state senators in hearings for three bills that would blur the separation between church and state. Two bills require posting religious language, the Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust.” The last bill allows pastors to serve as Chaplins in a role adjacent to school guidance counselors. As a pastor, I can tell you I am not qualified for this and I certainly don’t believe this is a healthy move for the wellbeing of children or the separation of church and state.
This conversation is not new, but renewed for sure in the last decade. And what surprised me most is that, while there may be a deeper agenda of control draped in faith there is an earnest sense that putting a poster of the 10 Commandments up in a school classroom will matter. They long less depression, more engaged students and lower risk for suicide, school shootings and unplanned pregnancies. And I can say at least a few of them believe that putting a poster on the wall will actually help. They can’t understand why a Chrisitan pastor wouldn’t want, “Thou shalt not kill” on a wall. But I can tell you I do not, I don’t think a poster is going to make anyone ‘less murder-y.’ And I for sure think if you have spent any time in a middle school putting, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle” on the wall is a bad idea.
I worry anytime I hear someone say “this is a Christian nation,” particularly if they are on our payroll. I worry because, in part, folks use this language to exclude others to name our faith as a domination system. I want kids to feel safe and well and have what they need and they need people and programs investing in them, not posters and certainly not a “christian minister" in the role of school counselor.
But I worry most of all that if we say we are a Christian nation, Jesus can ask us for an account. “Do you love me, America?” And we might say, “Yes Lord, you know that we do.” We might even point to our posters and churches and Sunday services and Jesus would ask us once more.
Do you love me…enough to actually do something like pay for school lunch or smaller class sizes and increase the number of school counselors. Or is this all just a parade, a performance, a show of loving our neighbors.
Do you love me? We want to build a wall and raid schools and churches and hospital beds. We want to detain and deport, we want to deploy more troops and we will separate families or skirt the law if needed to prove a point.
Do you love me? We love insurance profits and they are paid first before a single doctor or nurse, We love medical debt and healthcare by Go Fund Me or church spaghetti feed.
Do you love me? We love for-profit prisons more than public schools. We choose guns over safety. We choose tax breaks despite mountains of evidence that it won’t trickle down and when it comes to black lives and now even “blue lives” mattering, we choose proud boys and oath keepers and white christian nationalism.
Do you love me?
No.
We love money and power,
weapons and greed,
we love controlling bodies other than our own
and are comfortable with misogyny.
We love bullies and big shots,
even when they make projections and play the victim.
We love tackles and take downs.
We love efficiency more than ethics.
We love thinking we pulled ourselves up and
handing out bootstraps rather than meeting actual needs.
We love stuff and shopping and consumption,
no matter the real cost.
We love one time heroics over the safety-nets we all need.
We love keeping the ‘peace’
even if we lose ourselves and swallow our anger
or quiet our response to the world’s heartbreaking violence.
We love a toxic Christianity
and self-righteous jerks pedaling easy answers
as though they are God’s honest truth.
Accountability is hard. And we gather knowing that Jesus still asks us, “Do you love me?”
He asks with love and grace, because we are made to answer yes. We are made to answer yes, with every beat of our heart and breath of our lungs.
Do you love me requires action, courage and grace to answer and he will not be satisfied by our words. Love is action. Love is growth and love requires that everything must change. “Do you love me?” he asks, again and again until we, with our whole lives, answer “yes.”
Amen.